


knuckle up

by chanterai



Series: NEON DEMONS [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hotline Miami, Dark!Ven, Drabble Collection, Dubious Morality, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Multi, Murder Dates, Unhealthy Relationships, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-09 05:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanterai/pseuds/chanterai
Summary: Sometimes saving the city you love requires just a little bit of violence.i. in which vanitas does all the work but leaves ventus some leftovers.ii. in which roxas would do anything to keep sora safe.iii. in which vanitas is afraid of some things, but not many.





	1. death squad

**Author's Note:**

> the hotline au of my dreams! note the warnings. hotline miami canon typical violence, will add relevant warnings to each chapter. unedited/unbeta'd unless otherwise noted
> 
> i'm so sorry that the only thing i write is edgy and/or sad someday i will post something nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which vanitas does all of the work but leaves ven some leftovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (graphic depictions of corpses, dubious morality, questionable relationship, dark ven!)

_1:00AM EST_

_Miami, FL_

Ventus arrives and Vanitas is perched on the desk like a king, tapping his bat against polished wood.

Ven thinks that once upon a time he would have been nauseated by the scene laid out in the office. Blood and shattered windows, bodies crumpled on the cream-white carpet, haloed in spreading red stains. He crushes broken glass with his first step into the room and with a second step snaps what appears to have been a pair of glasses in half. 

It’s a mess. But nothing Ven is unused to. A glorious, gorgeous massacre.

There’d been a half-dozen bodies in the hall, in the elevator. A gorey bread crumb trail to lead him straight to Vanitas, though he’s not so hard to find, when one knows where to look. And Ven always knows where to look. 

“S’like a bomb went off in here,” he says, absently tapping his own bat once against the back of his leg before twirling it around and slinging it over his shoulder.

Vanitas keeps rhythm, easy and even in measures of three. So casual that you’d think he was sitting by the pool and not in a room full of bodies. 

“Bombs are cheap,” he says, just a little muffled in the rubber of his mask. Ven quirks a brow, though it goes unseen behind his own mask.

“Cheap-,”

“_Boring_,” Vanitas interrupts, always impatient. “Cheating.” He cocks his head and Ven can’t see his face but he hears the smile in his voice. “This is so much more fun.”

Ven rolls his eyes and makes his way deeper into the office. He has to step over a body to get closer to Vanitas and the face is so badly battered that Ven can’t tell at all what they had looked like before Vanitas had gotten to them. 

“True,” he agrees belatedly. 

He kicks a handgun away from one of the bodies as he goes; habitual, a step he doesn’t have to take when he knows how well his partner does his job.

The bat keeps on tapping out that easy _ one-two-three _waltz rhythm, more soothing than irritating. 

Once he’s finally crossed the room Vanitas lowers his the tip of his bat to hit the plush carpeting with a muted _ thunk. _There’s no hesitation in the way he reaches for Ven; vaguely needy, softer than it should be, considering. 

Ven lets himself be pulled in close, knees bumping up against the desk as he settles between Vanitas’ thighs. 

“Hardly left anything for me to do,” Ven complains benignly. He doesn’t mind. He never does. Where Ven’s violence is quiet, cool, calculated, Vanitas’ is a wild thing straining to get out. Feral, to match the blood-flecked hyena mask hiding his face. 

Vanitas makes an impatient noise. His nails dig into Ven’s hip warningly before his hand drifts up to work its way under Ven’s mask. 

“Cameras?” Ven murmurs, pressing his free hand into the taut give of Vanitas’ thigh. 

Vanitas makes another noise, vaguely offended. “Took them all out.”

Ven lets him peel back the mask, then reaches up to lift Vanitas’ up and off. 

Under the rubber visage of a grinning hyena Vanitas might as well be wearing a second mask. His pale eyes flash with that hunger, that violence. His mouth is sharp and curved up, teeth bared, a ferocious, aching smile. 

Ven sets the mask aside and leans in to kiss him anyway. 

The softness of their mouths meeting is at complete odds with the spatter of blood on Vanitas’ skin, with the bodies scattered around the room, skulls burst like overripe fruit. With the way neither of them are willing to let go of their weapons, still. 

Violent in all ways but this. 

When Vanitas pulls away he’s still grinning like he’d never stopped. Like he’d been smiling into their kiss, and probably he had been.

“I did leave you one thing,” he hums, bumping his nose into Ven’s with all the faux-innocence of a cat.

Ven hums back and does a sweep of the room — a quick count of bodies; one, two, three…

He smiles and presses his cheek to Vanitas’. The fourth body isn’t a body at all, but a man in an excruciatingly expensive suit, still gasping for air, still weakly dragging himself across the carpet. One of his legs seems to have been bent sideways, jutting out at an unnatural angle.

“Oh yeah,” Ven says around his grin, counting the bodies up to _ four _ again just to be sure. “You left that one _ just _ for me.”

Vanitas tenses, knees pressing into Ven’s hips, gloved hand wrapping tight in the back of his hair.

It’s not a kind thing to point out.

“Take it as you will,” Vanitas says coolly. There's no smile in his voice, not anymore.

Ven turns to kiss him again, a little deeper this time, apologetic without ever apologizing. Vanitas seems to accept it, though he looks distant when Ven pulls away.

“Thank you for the gift,” Ven says against his lips, pecks him once more before he steps back. Swings his bat around to hold it back-hand and tugs his mask back down over his face.

The man doesn’t look up at him as he approaches but he does wail wordlessly. This is who they’d come for in the first place — upper class scum, running a human trafficking ring behind the scenes of a PR company of all things. 

What they’re doing is righteous, Ven knows this. The man paws at the carpet, clawing for a gun that he’ll never reach in time.

Ven lifts his bat and Vanitas goes back to tapping, keeping time in little groups of three.


	2. new ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roxas would do anything to keep sora safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no new warnings here, just some casual stabbing hoohoo!
> 
> thank you so so so much to [j](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiden) for going through this for me, it would be a terrible mess w/o them!!

_2:00AM EST_

_Miami, FL_

“Don’t go.”

Roxas pauses as his feet touch the floor. Curls his toes into the carpet and hands into the bedsheet, considering. Or pretending to consider.

He can’t stay. They both know that.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Roxas says eventually, bending to scoop his shirt up off the floor. He’s stayed too long already.

Sora hums and Roxas listens to him sit up in bed as he buttons his shirt. It takes him halfway through buttoning it to realize that he doesn’t actually _ own _a button-up. Probably his brother’s, something he’d scooped off the top of the pile of clean laundry that never seems to get put away.

Sora’s apartment is much tidier, despite being half the size. Despite it being in an even worse neighbourhood than the two bedroom Roxas shares with his brother and his brother’s… sidekick, boyfriend. Whatever.

It’s a constant ember that coils and burns in Roxas’ gut — the fierceness with which he knows that Sora deserves _ more_. Deserves better than this tiny studio apartment in a shitty neighbourhood, with drapes too thin to block out the flickering signs from the strip club across the street.

On his weaker nights, Roxas imagines emptying his bank account. Packing his bags and then Sora into his car and driving far and fast and never, ever looking back at the sickly neon lights of Miami.

It would be doing what he wants, for once. And Sora’s safety is priceless.

Gentle fingers brush down the knobs of his spine and Roxas wants to turn around and take the time to kiss each of Sora’s knuckles, one by one.

“Wish you’d stay longer,” Sora says. It’s soft with a vulnerability that’s been weaving its way into his voice more and more these days. 

Roxas pauses. Thumbs idly at the third button from the top of his brother's shirt. 

“Work’s been busy,” he says carefully, turning and kneeling back up on the bed. Sora watches him with the wariness that comes from living in a city where thieves and murderers run rampant on every corner; Roxas watches him back with a restrained self-assuredness that comes from being one of those murderers.

The silence between them is heavy and thick. Sora is backlit in red, then pink, then purple from the signs flashing outside his bedroom window. 

Roxas, not for the first time, feels a twist of guilt in his gut.

Sora is the only person in his life that he’s ever regretted having to lie to. The only person he’s ever wanted to be completely honest with.

It hurts to hide from him.

He doesn’t flinch when Sora reaches up and cups his cheek. His expression has softened, sweetened, and Roxas wants nothing more than to take his hand and run.

“Be careful out there,” Sora says, because he doesn’t know that Roxas is exactly what people should be careful _ of _out there.

Roxas leans in and presses their foreheads together and breathes, wraps a hand around the back of Sora’s neck like he could keep him safe just by holding him this way.

“Always am,” he says.

—

It’s raining when he leaves Sora’s apartment. A neon sign from the convenience store next-door glistens in the damp street, flickering sickly green.

He huddles under an awning next door to light a cigarette. Sora doesn’t like the smell; neither do Ven or Vanitas. But the rain will wash it away by the time he gets to them.

The hood of his jacket barely keeps him dry but he doesn’t mind the wet so much. Even in February, the rain is still warm enough to be pleasant, if a little inconvenient. It soaks through his sneakers and into his socks, but he manages to stay curled in on himself enough to keep his smoke lit. 

“Hey _ kid._”

Roxas huffs and keeps walking. He doesn’t know the voice, doesn’t care to get acquainted. If the man knew who Roxas was, he’d be thanking him for the favour of being ignored.

“Don’t fuckin’ walk away from me,” says the same voice. Roxas rolls his eyes.

“You don’t want to do this,” he tells the man as he comes to a stop. He’s standing in a puddle and his feet are starting to get cold, which is annoying. The sign above him flickers and its reflection ripples in the water on the sidewalk. 

“Oh, I think I do, actually,” says the man. “Hand over your wallet and I’ll forget you ever _ disrespected _me, huh?”

Resignedly, Roxas turns.

His mask is in his backpack but his hood keeps him anonymous enough. Sora’s neighbourhood is poor enough that he knows there aren’t any cameras, or at least none that’ll be able to identify him through the rain.

The guy grins at him. He’s got a face like a rat, pointed in all the wrong places, but he’s bigger than Roxas by far. 

It’s the face that gives it away. 

Roxas recognizes him, is the thing. Remembers him following Sora down the street one night as he’d come to meet Roxas at their spot. _ Stalking, _really, bare meters behind him on the sidewalk with that same creepy sneer on his face.

Well. That settles it.

“Come to your sense-,”

The butterfly knife moves from pocket to hand to gut before this rat-faced fuck can even finish his sentence. It goes in easy and comes out even easier, leaves the man wondering exactly what’s happened even as he collapses to his knees in the puddle.

Cheerfully, Roxas wipes his blade off on the guy’s shirt. Green neon flickers on, then off again. Lights up the look of shock on the man’s face and turns the blood seeping into his white t-shirt black.

And then he’s gone, off down the wet sidewalk before the guy can say a single word. Which is a shame, really, because it would’ve probably been his last.


	3. body prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vanitas is afraid of some things, but not many.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeehaw last chapter!! thank you for joining me on this ride, please expect a lot of weird disjointed sidestories and also probably the direct continuation from this........ eventually
> 
> thanks again to my powerhouse of an editor [j](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiden) without whom this fic would have been markedly less good
> 
> warnings for this chapter are basically just mentions of blood and a little bit of dipping into vanitas' very specific obsessive habits

_ 2:58AM EST _

_ Miami, FL _

Vanitas drums his fingers on the windowsill. 

There's been a certain itch under his skin since he made it home. He’d let himself in to the apartment to find Ventus still gone, Roxas too. He’d cleaned his mask methodically under water so hot his hands stayed vivid red long after the water ran clear. He’d showered and changed into warm, clean clothes and settled on the couch, the heel of his palm resting on the cool wood of the sill.

He’d been keeping time but he's lost track now, staring out into the rain, tapping ring-middle-index in a steady one-two-three rhythm.

When he was very young and nothing at all like the person that he is now, he’d learned to play the piano. The drum of his fingertips against the sill feels something like muscle memory of a time he can barely remember. 

He thinks of sheet music. Thinks of notation in threes. 

_ Tri-pl-et. Tri-pl-et. Tri-pl-et. _

Ventus should have been home by now and Vanitas isn’t worried. He doesn’t worry, not about Roxas or Ventus, about whether they’ve been shot dead in the street. 

What he does worry about is whether or not there are three coffee mugs in the cabinet. Three plates and three glasses. Three knives in the drawer. Three guns lined up all tidy in the dresser.

_ Tri-pl-et. Tri-pl-et. Tri-pl-et. _

He’s not worried about Ventus but he considers texting him anyway. Considers texting Roxas, to see if he’s going to bail on them again. He hasn’t been around much lately, and while Vanitas isn't complaining, he's becoming more and more suspicious as time goes on. 

Irritably, he glances away from the sheets of rain at the window and up at the wall clock just in time to see it strike three.

_ Tri-pl-et. _

A pleasant shudder runs through his body.

—

Vanitas pauses with his ring finger on the sill to listen to Ventus shake rain off of his jacket in the foyer. The clock clicks over to 3:15 as Ventus lets out a little puff of air, exhaustion or relief or both in equal measures.

Vanitas’ middle finger twitches and he finishes the pattern, tap-taps the _ pl-et _before he heaves himself off the couch.

“You were gone for ages,” he says sullenly.

Ventus shoots him a sleepily satisfied smile and runs a hand through his wet hair, pushes short blonde spikes in the wrong direction before smoothing them back the correct way.

“Cop car down the street,” he says easily, bending to unzip his backpack and tug out his mask to toss in the sink. Vanitas goes to him, padding across the apartment in his bare feet and glaring pointedly at Ventus’ wet shoes. 

“You were followed?”

Ventus laughs as he starts scrubbing down the mask and Vanitas watches with detached interest as the water runs red, then pink, then clear. 

“Absolutely not,” Ventus says, sounding vaguely offended. “What kind of amateur do you take me for?”

Vanitas watches him silently until Ventus rolls his eyes.

“Stabbing,” he relents. “In the next neighbourhood over.”

“You?”

Ventus purses his lips impatiently. “_No. _I have no idea what happened, Vanitas, stop grilling me.”

Vanitas frowns back. There's a burn of agitation in the way Ventus had snapped his name, in the tautness of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes. Vanitas shifts his weight warily to one foot, ready to fight back if he needs to. He doesn't want to, but...

Bare seconds later, Ventus' expression softens and he reaches to cup the back of Vanitas' neck. Presses gentle fingers into the tension in his shoulders until he almost wants to apologize for pushing.

Apologies aren’t really something they do, though, and instead he turns on his heel and heads back to the window. Ventus will understand.

—

Roxas shows up at a quarter to four, drenched from head to toe.

Ventus breaks the lingering silence of the apartment with a laugh that startles Vanitas into slamming his whole palm down on the windowsill.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Ventus says gleefully, even as he snatches up a towel from the laundry basket and tosses it over.

“_Yo__u’re _ a rat,” Roxas snaps back. He strips off his hoodie and flings it with a wet _ splat _to the kitchen tile. Vanitas glowers at both of them from his perch on the couch while Roxas towels off his hair.

“You’re late,” he grumbles, and Roxas peers at him with his bangs still plastered to his forehead.

“Cop-,”

“Yeah, yeah,” Vanitas interrupts. “Cop car, I know, Ventus had the same excuse.”

Roxas purses his lips and in that moment, with his oversized t-shirt soaked through and clinging to his slender body, he looks so, so eerily like Ventus. They’re twins, yes, but they normally wear their features in such strikingly different ways that it’s never quite so evident as it is now.

Vanitas gathers himself, reminds himself of why he was angry in the first place and then narrows his eyes at Roxas in realization.

“_You _did the stabbing,” he accuses. “You bailed on the mission to-,”

“Jesus, dude,” Roxas mutters. “I didn’t bail for that. I did stab that guy but I didn’t bail for _ that _.”

“Then what?”

They both turn to look at Ventus. He’s still smiling but it’s gone cool, and Vanitas is reminded of exactly why the leopard mask suits Ventus so well.

There’s an easy danger in the way he moves. The way he smiles closed-lipped like he’s hiding fangs.

Roxas’ jaw is tight. More tense than cold and it’s so easy to see the differences in their faces this way. Roxas wears this anxious apathy like armour, never showing more than he explicitly needs to. And Ventus has always been a _leader._ Confident, solid, generous with smiles and praise. 

Perfectly sweet until he’s not, and then even Vanitas feels the tell-tale knife’s edge of fear. 

“Recon,” Roxas says after much too long a pause. “I’ve been watching a... pimp.”

The cool suspicion starts to melt off of Ventus’ face. He’s always been too quick to believe Roxas, too sweetly and attached to ever doubt his brother.

It’s not the whole truth. Vanitas, at least, can tell that much. 

Roxas clears his throat and elaborates, “the guy that I stabbed was part of some new crew. The pimp’s crew.”

And Ventus, abruptly, slips back to that sparkling grin. Nothing makes him happier than righteous murder.

“Excellent,” he says, clapping his hands together so sharply it makes Vanitas jump. “Fill me in, let’s make a plan!”

Vanitas settles back on the couch, hauls an old blanket over his lap and watches more than listens to Roxas reluctantly spout information while Ventus nods along.

Roxas is lying. About what, Vanitas can’t be sure. Not yet at least.

Vanitas hates liars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pop on by my twitter where i scream non-stop about this au @[buffmickeymouse](http://twitter.com/buffmickeymouse)


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